Kenneth Gergen Views

I read an article recently by Kenneth Gergen.  It's called "Social saturation and the populated self" Part three. Basically what Gergen tries to say in his article is that we as a society are Technology freaks. That we have became addicted to Technology and that we depend on it. Now this article was made in 1993 which was 19 years ago. And if Gergen is saying that back in 93 then how much worse has it gotten in 2012?? While reading is article one interesting idea of his caught my eye. He talks about "social Ghosts" in our society. Basically what Gergen says that social Ghosts is "Each of the selves we acquire from others can contribute to inner dialogue, private discussions we have with ourselves about all manner of persons, events, and issues." In simpler form this means that as individuality people our thoughts are heavily influenced by our culture, the famous people we know and follow influence our decisions and the way we think. And with technology and social media bigger than ever before, we are now more influenced as a society than ever before. Think about, how many times have you seen people dress a certain way, act a certain, do certain things to act like or imitate someone they are interested in or by what the follow. One example of this would be growing up in America as a kid you'll probably at some point in your life develop passion for sports. Some of the popular sports in America are Football, Baseball and Basketball. Kids, and teenagers follow and play these sports because they watch legends from the sport play. Like when Michael Jordan played Basketball in Chicago, he was an All-star. Kids would watch him play and they would get inspired. Or the position in Football as the Quarterback. The Quarterback has been made glamorous by American Culture and beliefs. When in reality the Quarterback arguably does the least work out on the field physically. But because it's such a popular position, every kid wants to be a quarterback so he can have a certain status among his peers. Another example of this would be people who listen to the artist Drake, or Lil Wayne  These two artist dress a certain way. They were snap back hats, have tattoos and were a shirt that will say "swag." People dress the same way as Drake and Lil Wayne because they are influenced by them. I see a lot of people wearing snap backs all the time. But Technology has defiantly intensified this. With Social media being as big as it is and the fact it gets bigger every day, its now possible and easier to influence more people than ever before. Also there are more ways to connect to each other which gives opportunity to influence people we couldn't influence 19 years ago in 1993. If I wanted to I could start talking to a random person on the internet from any random country and play my influences on him. The range of people that have the potential to be influenced here is enormous  And this is why I find social ghosts so interesting because Kenneth Gergen was completely right about the fact that Technology has caused more people to be influenced by others. It has intensified in the past 20 years with social media.